Having never sailed from the UK in our first ten years of cruising we now find ourselves having done it twice on the trot and today saw us return to Southampton for our second experience of sailing out of the UK.
We arrived at Southampton from an easterly direction coming in along the M27 and this was because we had to collect our two senior companions who both live in Eastbourne. After dropping the car off at the Yellow car park we made the short walk to the cruise terminal to check in and embark. Three of us hold Celebrity Captain’s Club Elite status so we were able to pass through a little quicker than some of the others, but only just as all the queues seemed to me to be the same length and am moving equally as quick. It’s nice when a perk works in your favour and this is one such example where it has in the past but today it wasn’t really any benefit.
Cabins weren’t ready at the time we boarded so it was up to the Oceanview Cafe for a bite to eat. By the time we had finished our lunch we noticed the buffet was not busy at all so it indicated to us the cabins were now ready so it was off to find our accommodation for the next 14 nights.
We are very familiar with the cabin layout having sailed on this class of ship 5 times previously a first for us on this cruise is a kettle in the cabin. I’m not sure if we will actually make use of it at this stage so we’ll have to wait and find out if it’s something we might need to get taken out to give us a bit more space on the worktop.
Our cases arrived at 2:30 and we were completely unpacked by 3:00, for some strange reason it felt like we had a surplus of time today, in the past the first afternoon has always seemed a bit of a rush.
Our steward Hamilton and his assistant Jayesh made brief introductions and welcomed us aboard.
I have also been a little extravagant and purchased the unlimited internet package for the whole cruise, Elite membership providing 30% discount on the advertised price. My excuse…….the $900 OBC was burning a big whole in my pocket.
As we have adjoining cabins we have been able to open the balconies into one one big one which makes the space seem that much bigger.
Muster was at 3:45 with departure swiftly after at 4:30. We had some really lovely weather for our sail out and not at all what I was expecting.
This evening the act in the Eclipse Theatre is called Andante and they are are four guys described as having four great solo voices which come together to produce spine tingling harmonies. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
We have been allocated table 345 on deck 3 and will be joined by an American couple from our table on our list Eclipse cruise. After discovering they were on the same Baltic cruise we got their TA to arrange for us to be on the same table again. I’ve already bumped into him in the buffet……of all places!
Right, I’m posting early tonight so will report on the evenings activities in tomorrow’s post.
Bye for now.